Right now, you can’t build a comparable desktop for $1000, unless you go for one of those BC250 builds. RAM, SSDs, and GPUs would push the starting price (from zero, mind you) to around $1500. Even just the 2x16 “budget RAM” I bought four years ago is close to $250-$300 for the set now.

On the other hand, you can pretty easily find a comparable entry level laptop that can do gaming for $1000. Will it beat a $1000 desktop machine from a few years ago? Will it beat a true gaming laptop? No, but that’s not what we’re comparing.

At this point in time specifically, a $1000 laptop (the comparable general purpose option) is going to be a mid-to-upper entry-level one. Because it’s supposed to be general purpose, it won’t have hardware chosen to maximize gaming potential. Likely all of these options would only allow a RAM or hard drive upgrade, as well. This puts them upon somewhat equal footing with the Steam Machine, except I would hazard a guess that the Steam Machine would still do better at gaming due to the hardware selection they had available at production time.

And if you mean building a $1000 gaming Linux box, good luck not going over that limit with current RAM, GPU, and SSD prices.

The clue is in the directions: REISUB

• Hold Alt + Print Scr
• Then type R E I S U B slowly.
  • Give a 2-3sec pause between presses to be sure.

You can look up what each letter does, as each one performs a different function when combined with Alt + Print Scr.

ETA: I seem to recall that you can enter the sequence quicker than that, as I believe I used to, but it’s probably good to give your system time to perform each function, especially if you’re trying to rescue it.

Basically at my age I could really care less that I own these games anymore. I have my collection of the past and ill cherish it even more.

Great, so “fuck you, got mine?” Everybody else who wasn’t born long enough ago to own physical games (or who can afford to pay inflated “collectible” prices) is just shit outta luck?

Apathy is the best outcome these ghouls could hope for. “I don’t care if I own anything, and I’m content with that,” is the rental economy the ultracapitalists so badly want.

The thing to keep in mind, too, is that this isn’t a console; it’s a Linux computer with a focus upon gaming, so the comparison isn’t exactly 1:1. You can only play games on a $1000 console. You can do much more with a $1000 computer that runs Linux and plays games.

Onion Bubs! Onion Buuuuubs!

You know, there was a time when I kinda rooted for Windows. Windows 10 had come around and dealt with many of the sins of Win8, Edge was a competent browser, Cortana could be easily ignored, and Windows Defender was finally good at its job. Sure, the whole shift to have every app use WinUI was a bit clunky and piecemeal, but gradually modernizing from the older Win7 style made some sense.

Then Win 11 hit; it became obvious that WinUI “upgrades” were being used to hide key features from previous control panel stuff, those same control panels still exist with their older style alongside the changed controls, Cortana has been replaced with Copilot and shoved into everything, Microsoft collects even more “user metrics,” and while Edge is still competent, it’s affected by the previous two points pretty heavily.

Whatever Windows could have been, it did the predictable enshittification thing, and they deserve to lose users like me to the greener pastures of Linux.

CachyOS also has a live USB.

But I’d actually go a step further. Install both in a VM using their flagship DE. CachyOS’s installer actually comes with many different DEs and window managers, so you should be able to get the look and feel of many different setups there, too.